Topics+Course+Descriptions

Students in this course participate in a series of class debates, presenting and cross-examining the arguments of those who have a stake in various environmental controversies (about energy, toxic chemicals, consumption, etc.) Students also work in groups to design a proposal for a project to help solve an environmental problem. Throughout the course, students are encouraged to develop their own environmental values and ideas. Communications intensive.
 * Environment and Politics -- 4cr, CI, SUST, FO **** (IHSS 1966) **

**Nature and Society – 4cr, CI, SUST, FO (IHSS 1970) Akera TF 2-3:50pm** This course focuses on the social and ecological aspects of humans in the natural world. We emphasize critical thinking about where we come from and where we are going as a species. The course draws on historical perspectives and addresses contemporary issues such as climate change, our national energy resources, and the local foods movement. The course includes readings as well as student projects, field trips, guest lectures, and “ethnographic” assignments about our consumer society. The course is limited to first-year students enrolled in the Vasudha Living &Learning Community, or by permission of the instructor.

This course examines the history of social, political, and economic conditions of the War on Drugs. The television series “The Wire” serves as a major text for this course. By raising the question of what a public health approach to drugs might look like, this course challenges first-year students to play a policy-making role in the creation of evidence-based drug policy and public health policy.
 * Public Health and the War on Drugs **

**Environment & Law – 4cr, SUST** (STSS 2960) Howard MR 12-1:50pm This is an introductory environmental law and policy course, with emphasis on the practical use and application of legal concepts.

The development and widespread use of information technologies have presented widespread challenges to law and policy, both presenting new social issues and reopening historically settled legal problems. This course explores these policy issues, considering the intersections between law, society and technology online.
 * Internet & Law (STSH 2961) **

What does evolutionary theory add to our understanding of human behavior, cognition, organization, and culture? This course presents new perspectives in the philosophy of biology, particularly as they relate to humans, levels of selection, epigenetics and cultural evolutionary theories. A pervasive question posed throughout the course is the comparison and application of evolutionary and developmental perspectives as well as the relationship between biology and society. Prerequisites: ** Biology 1010 or equivalent or Philosophy of Biology. **
 * Evolution, Culture & Cognition, Special Topics, 4xxx/6xxx **

Drawing on biological and cultural perspectives, this course considers continuities and discontinuities between humans, animals, and digital beings from a number of perspectives, including those relating cognition, sociality and embodiment. Broadly we explore the attribution of human characteristics to non-humans and machine characteristics to to humans. We consider what makes an entity a "social animal" through comparative studies, experiments in cognitive science, and observations in the wild, and how such work influence, and is influenced by, familiar concepts such as society, innateness, mating, ethics and what constitutes "normal.” Prerequisites: One of the following: Phil 1120 Minds and Machines, STSS 1510 Introduction to Cultural Anthropology (or equivalent), STSS 2200 Engineering, Design, and Society; LITR 2150 or LITR 4160 The Human Mind in Fiction; Psych 2730 Social Psychology or Permission of the instructor. = = Over years of painstaking research and emotionally charged activism, environmental justice scholars have been able to successfully link questions of social justice, equity, rights and people’s quality of life. For environmental justice scholars and activists, environmental problems are social problems; the two are inseparable. This is because “toxic victims are, typically, poor or working people of modest means. Thus their environmental problems are inseparable from their economic condition. The purpose of this course is to explore how racial, economic, and cultural background can influence people’s access to clean, safe, and productive environments.
 * A Social Animal, Special Topics, 4xxx **
 * Environmental Justice – 4cr, SUST (STSS) Mascarenhas **

**Energy Politics – 4cr, SUST** **(STSS 4962) Breyman** Through lectures and in-class discussions, this course explores the history, domestic and international politics, policy, philosophy, economics, environmental consequences, media coverage of, and alternatives to, the US addiction to fossil fuels. Students, who may earn either humanities or social science credit, maintain analytical blogs with twice-weekly posts or write and present semester-length research papers, take a midterm exam and a comprehensive final exam. Four credit hours. Communications Intensive. Offered Fall semester annually.

**China and the United States –** **4cr., SUST(STSS4964) Winner** China and the United States are economic and political giants that have intricate, sometimes troubled relationships as well as deeply interwoven futures. The course explores a variety of historical, philosophical, social, and political issues that shed light upon prospects for cooperation and conflict between the two superpowers. Required are substantial amounts of reading, writing and discussion."

**Sustainability Research Design – 4cr SUST (****STSS 4961)** This course guides students through research design for a social science thesis, resulting in a thesis proposal and plan of work. The course helps students think about and focus their research goals, and identify sources of data. Students produce extensive research memos every week, which feed into the proposal due at the end of the semester. Restricted to STS, SUST and DIS majors.

This course covers the intersections between youth and information technologies – particularly those of the personal computer and the Internet – over the past four decades. Particular attention will be paid to the co-construction of youth and information technologies, the ways in which the two have been mobilized and become intertwined in public discourse and controversy.
 * Youth & Teens Online (STSS-4968) **